


Diploid

by VenusTheMarvelTurtle



Series: The Rat Tail Blues [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Confusion, Cute Ghosts, Drowning, Fluff, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Drowning, New Guardian, Resurrection, Set towards the end of the first game, Temporary Character Death, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 06:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16868125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenusTheMarvelTurtle/pseuds/VenusTheMarvelTurtle
Summary: Death is agony, and her face is not her own, but at least she isn't alone.





	Diploid

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going through Cayde feels now that APPARENTLY YOU KNOW WHO IS BACK TO TORMENT ME, so enjoy this rapid fire dump of drama and emotion.  
> Teensy drabbles that form a tragic mini series. Completely self indulgent but hopefully somebody likes it! The tags for each story will tell you exactly what's in the can.

The very first sensation she has when she wakes is of death- the cold, crushing, heavy, undeniable stranglehold of death- pressing down on her body, squeezing her bones, chilling her flesh...

Her chest is spasming with agony. Her limbs feel weight _less_ and weight _ed_ in the same instance. Her body shudders into action, writhing and fighting in primal desperation, kicking against the twisted cradle of metal and bulk rusted snugly around her ankle, trapping her there. The world is murky and slow. 

The pain increases. There's a blot, a shimmer, a- 

 _A light_...

-a light darting around her head faster than she can turn and follow it, a frantic gurgle in her-

" _!_..."

Her eardrums burst. The pain is electric. She kicks and kicks and kicks and the tendons _stretch_ , the bone breaks, and the _pain_ -

But she's free, or mostly so. Death is close, so close, and physically close as well. There's a corpse an inch from her face, a mummified horror of puckered skin like parchment and skeletal teeth sneering at her, brittle fingers wrapped around her wrist like they had died holding her.

There's revulsion, and then a flash of _surety_ , a surge of _defiance, decision, protectiveness_. She pulls the corpse along with her and then they're both liberated of their prison, their coffin, but they aren't free of death, because the corpse is a corpse and she  _cannot breathe._

She kicks- her leg is mangled. She squirms- she floats, and sinks. She tries to yell- ice and heaviness fills her lungs.

She knows then, somehow, that this is how it ended. That she had been this way before, awake, in pain, fighting, fighting, choking,  _hold on, hold on, we're going to be okay-_

Death demands her attention again. Her neck snaps back as the pain becomes all consuming. She screams, and instead of sound, there's a red cloud of bubbles. It hurts, and it's beautiful, coloring the long black tendrils of her hair burgundy.

Darkness stains her mind like ink, smothering it, but as she fades into it, she sees a second light, and color returns to the vacant holes in the corpse's skull. 

A body forms, flesh crawling over bone, skin creeping over flesh.

Gazes meet.

Their panic begins the moment hers ends. 

* * *

When she's brought back again, her eyes are full of light and warmth that might have felt nice in moderation. 

She's floating on her back, spread eagle like an abandoned doll. The surface under her is soft, and cold, and undulates... 

_Water. It's water..._

_Where..._

Her mind is coming online like an old computer, the dust and decay of death sizzling away as her synapses reconnect, remade perfectly anew, fresh with no data. A clean slate. 

She knows what she needs to know, and absolutely nothing else. 

_(-except-)_

_("Daddy?")_

_("Look-...your...-ter. I'll...short-")_

Sparkling static cuts through the jumble of images in her head, devours it, leaves no trace of it. 

She knows what she needs to know, and absolutely nothing else. 

There's a pop, a splash, and the little light from before is back. She can hear it now, chattering away as she drifts and breathes and learns how to be alive. 

"-ullshit! I'm sorry, that must have sucked for you, but I didn't know how else to get you out of that wreck." The little ball of light spins, shuffles itself- himself?- and makes a noise that sounds like a snort dipped in radio blurbs. "Intelligent design my eye. What I wouldn't give for a pair of hands..."

She tries to speak, and a torrent of water erupts from her throat, her nose, her stomach, her...

Everywhere. It comes from everywhere. 

The little light pulses, and the pain ebbs enough for her to form words. 

"-a-am...uh?-"

"It's a long story. But basically-"

Another pop. Another splash. Another light... and another person. 

They come up gasping and coughing, this other person, fighting the water. It's a girl, like her. Their struggles disorient her, and they flail for a bit, until they're both righted. They reach for each other without thinking, mingling together by some old instinct.

The second light squeaks and flutters frantically in the air, twittering around the first one. "I found them! Well, eh, we found them! Together! My- our! Our guardians!" Its voice is softer, higher. 

The first light hovers closer, seemingly inspecting her, inspecting them. "Well... this might cause a stir at the tower."

"Why, what do you...ohh...oh! Oh, cool! I get it! This is so cool, I've never seen any up close before!"

They turn to each other, she and the person who she knows in her gut was the skeleton from down below.

They stare, and aside from the vastly different tyles of their sodden hair, they stare into a mirror, though they do not know it yet. 

"Twins!" the second light chips happily, turning a backflip over the choppy waves of the turbulent Earth sea that had been their burial ground. "At the same time! And we might be the first!"

"That's what she said," the first light- _my ghost_ , her mind whispers- mutters quietly...

And she smiles, and laughs, and splashes it. The other two give matching squeaks, shying away in exasperation.

She knows exactly what she needs to know, and nothing else. 


End file.
